I’m watching an old Kurosawa film with my dad and again am perplexed by the shaved-top-of-the-head hairstyles. It’s not everyone, so is there some cultural significance to who is partially shaved and who is not?
Only significance I’m aware of is that only true samurai warriors (or ronin, who were masterless samurai) were allowed to wear the topknot. Non-warriors were thus identified by their lack of a topknot.
Nothing about shaved or unshaved heads, though. Maybe it’s just individual preference.
at first, the reason for the shaved head just in that area was for the helmet, called kabuto. With all of that hair it was uncomfortable, and it made you cooler, so they shaved the part that the kabuto was resting on. After a while this hairstyle just became popular, even if a samurai did not dress in full armor, called yoroi. i hope this helps.
There was a great number of different hairstyles throughout Japanese history, some featuring top-knots, some not, some with parts of the head shaved and others with a full head of hair.
The earliest hairstyle that corresponds to what you’re asking about is called sakayaki (or tsukishiro). It appeared at the end of the Heian era (c. 1000 CE) and there are a number of theories about its origin, including the warrior helmet explanation mentioned above. There were a number of variations on the sakayaki style, such as oo-sakayaki (also known as yaro-mage), han-atama, and nakazori. Here’s a slow loading page that has drawings of those styles. At first, the sakayaki style was indeed used by samurai and nobility but eventually became popular with the common people in the Edo period (1600 - 1850s).
Appart from the sakayaki style, there was also the [url=“http://www.cosmo.ne.jp/~barber/gazou/tyasen1.gif”]chasengami* style that featured a different type of knot. There was also the chonmage style for older men, that did not have a knot.
Originally, sakayaki hair would have had some significance, but eventually it became a matter of personal taste. It might have started for some practical reason but by the Edo period enough people were trying to give themselves noble looks by shaving their head that it was just a fashion statement. I saw old photographs of petty thieves taken in the waning days of Edo period and at least one of the guys had half grown back sakayaki hair, so by that time it was definitely not an upper-class only style.
Incidently, these styles were banned in the Meiji era when the samurai caste was abolished.
Hey thanks everyone! Most excellent responses.
This is a personal observation, not based on any hard data, but male pattern baldness may have helped the hair fashion of samurai ‘evolve’. In modern times, the typical male pattern baldness among Japanese men has led to the ‘bar code’ hairstyle… a few long strands combed over what could otherwise pass for sakayaki… so, the samurai were more fashionable than the sarariman.
On sopme level is disturbs me that we have an expert on Samurai hairstyles on this boad. 
I’m scared that I actually decided to read it.